AGRICULTURE. 



F. F. Hallett, of Manor-Farm, Kemptown, 

 England, has been for more than twenty years 

 a highly-intelligent, practical wheat-grower, 

 and has devoted much time and study to the 

 nature and habits of the wheat-plant and the 

 best means of developing it. He found that 

 where wheat had the opportunity (from sparse 

 or thin sowing) to expand, "tiller," or "stool," 

 i. e., to spread out its joints and eventually its 

 stems from a single grain, it always availed it- 

 self of the opportunity, and that each of these 

 offshoots produced a stem, and an ear or head 

 of wheat. He discovered further that by a 

 proper selection of grains for' sowing, and then 

 planting (by drill) at a sufficient distance apart, 

 this tillering and spreading process could be 

 greatly increased, so that he exhibited at the 

 Exeter meeting of the British Association a 

 plant of wheat from a single grain, which had 

 94 stems, each crowned with its ear of wheat ; 

 a plant of barley from a single grain with 110 

 stems, and a plant of oats from a single grain 

 with 87 stems. These results were obtained, 

 not by the use of any manure or by any new 

 process of tillage, but by the following means : 

 His seed was selected on the following plan : 

 choosing the best and most productive plant, 

 of either wheat, barley, or oats, viz., the one 

 which had tillered the most and formed the 

 best heads, he planted the grains from it in 

 rows, twelve inches apart every way, and so 

 arranged that the grains from each head or 

 ear should be in a row by themselves. At 

 harvest he. selected from these, after careful 

 study and comparison, the finest plant that 

 which had tillered .most and produced the 

 finest, largest, and fullest ears. This process 

 he repeated for four or more years, the im- 

 provement being at first rapid, but after a 

 series of years having apparently reached its 

 limit. The following table shows the results 

 of four or five years' repetition of this process: 



* This includes milch-cows, the enumeration not hav- 

 ing been made separately. 



Table showing the Importance of each Additional 

 Generation of Selection. 



Thus, by means of repeated selection alone, 

 the length of the ears has been doubled, their 

 contents nearly trebled, and the " tillering " 

 power of the seed increased fivefold. The 

 wheat used for this series of experiments was 

 the original red ; experiments subsequently 

 made with Hunter's white wheat increased 

 the number of grains from 60 in the original 

 ear to 124 in the fourth year's best ear; with 

 the Victoria white, from 60 to 114; with the 

 Golden Drop, from 32 to 96 grains; with 

 Grace's white, still more remarkable results. 

 Major Hallett thus gives his seed-wheat a 

 "pedigree," as h terms it, growing always 

 from the best and producing the wonderful 

 results stated above and the more wonderful 

 ones which follow. He deduces from his ob- 

 servations and experiments the following laws 

 of the development of cereals : 



1. Every fully-developed plant, whether of 

 wheat, oats, or barley, presents an ear superior 

 in productive power to any of the rest on that 

 plant. 



2. Every such plant contains one grain, 

 which upon trial proves more productive than 

 any other. 



8. The best grain in a given plant is found 

 in its best ear. 



4. The superior vigor of this grain is trans- 

 missible in different degrees to its progeny. 



5. By repeated careful selection the superi- 

 ority is accumulated. 



6. The improvement, which is at first rapid, 

 gradually, after a long series of years, is dimin- 



